Page 96 of Catching My Dreams

It would be messy and bloody and brutal, but she would have to tear out the part of her that he’d infected. No matter how long it took. And this time, she would build her walls so high that he would never find his way back in again.

27

Noah arrived home to an empty house. He’d never been happier to have the place to himself while his mom was at her bimonthly book club.

“Fuck,” he screamed as he threw another one of his high school football trophies against his bedroom wall.

He wanted to break everything. The only thing that would be safe from the destructive force of his anger was the box set of clothbound Jane Austen books he’d been planning to give Ella for her birthday.

He wanted to take out his rage on the world around him until it reflected the brokenness inside him. He wanted to kill—

“Are you quite done with your hissy fit?”

The unwelcome voice was like gasoline, enflaming Noah’s anger. He spun around and punched Brett before the bastard could disappear back into the plane he’d just appeared out of. His knuckles hit the side of Brett’s face with a loud crack, but the pain in Noah’s fist wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. He wished he’d broken his hand punching the piece of shit.

Brett recovered surprisingly quickly, spitting blood and what might have been a piece of tooth onto Noah’s bedroom floor. “That wasn’t very nice,” he seethed.

Noah’s fists curled tighter, begging to take another shot at him. “If you think Ella will suddenly want you because I broke up with her, you’re even more delusional than I thought.”

“Ella loves me in a way you’ll never understand,” Brett replied, his eyes narrowed hatefully.

“If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Brett scoffed. “I’d never hurt her.”

He was a goddamned liar.

“Besides, you tried that already, remember?”

Noah’s teeth ground together. As if he’d forget trying to crush someone’s skull in with the large glass paperweight he’d kept on his desk since he was thirteen. Brett had disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room, escaping the hit with an infuriating amount of ease. Still, Noah wasn’t one to give up that easily.

He took the already-open switchblade from his pocket and aimed the blade at the other man’s chest. Brett’s eyes widened, and for a second, Noah thought he had him. His hopes were incredibly short-lived. Brett vanished before the blade could meet his flesh.

He reappeared a second later out of Noah’s reach. “Seeing as you did what I asked, I’ll let you live,” he said, his eyes glacial. “But try anything like that again, and I’ll kill you and that lovely mother of yours before you can even see me coming.”

Noah had never known he was capable of such intense hatred. “What happens when Ella still wants nothing to do with you?”

“She’ll come around,” Brett replied, sounding utterly unbothered by the prospect of convincing a woman he’d once tried to rape that they belonged together. “I know she will.”

“Ella hates you,” Noah argued.

“Only because you and your friends turned her against me,” Brett snapped. He shook his head. “Just remember to keep your mouth shut about this. If you say anything to Ella or those friends of yours, I’ll go through on my threat.”

If I can’t have her, no one will. That was what Brett had said earlier that day to force Noah into ending things with Ella. He’d basically scripted the break-up himself, not giving Noah the choice of ending things in a way that hurt Ella less.

He’d claimed he would rather kill her than see her with someone else, and Noah believed he was deranged enough to do it. It was why he’d had no choice but to do what Brett had wanted, even though it had killed him to crush Ella with lies that he knew she’d never forgive him for.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Noah bit out. If he thought he could get away with it, he would at least tell Riley or Asher, but he couldn’t risk it when Brett could be watching him at all times.

“Good,” Brett said with a sharp nod. “I’ll see you around, Noah.”

He vanished, but Noah could still feel eyes on him long after he’d disappeared. It was probably paranoia, but he wouldn’t put it past the creep to stick around and watch Noah destroy his own room and fall apart in the wake of his blackmail.

???

Noah let his head fall back against his headrest. He didn’t want to be there. He should have made an excuse about feeling sick. That way, he wouldn’t be about to walk into his dad’s house, where he’d no doubt be interrogated about Ella and her absence, assuming they didn’t all already know what he’d done.

They would all hate him. Fuck, he hated himself. And his mom wasn’t his biggest fan either. Noah had told her before he’d left the house that he’d ended things with Ella, and he’d never seen her look so disappointed in him.

---